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Koobface Gang Exposed

How Five Members of the Koobface Malware Gang Were Unmasked

According to the New York Times, five men believed to be responsible for spreading a notorious computer worm on Facebook and other social networks, are hiding in plain sight in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The five men are said to be involved in the Koobface malware gang, which has blighted millions of computer users earns millions of dollars every year for the group.

Naked Security has great pleasure in being able to tell the in-depth story of how these individuals were identified as part of the Koobface gang, in a detailed investigation conducted by independent researcher Jan Drömer, and Dirk Kollberg of SophosLabs between early October 2009 and February 2010.

It's an incredible detective story of tireless investigation, which involved scouring the internet, searching company records and taking advantage of schoolboy social networking errors made by the suspected criminals, their friends and family.

Up until now, Drömer and Kollberg's research has been a closely-guarded secret, known only to a select few in the computer security community and shared with various law enforcement agencies around the globe. However, recent news reports began to leak onto the internet about a member nicknamed "Krotreal" - meaning the cat was well and truly out of the bag."

Now we have to wait and see what, if any, action the authorities will take against the Koobface gang.